iLlBMRY OF CONGRESS.* 



» ^- rS>5S* 

♦dNITBD states of AMERICA. 5 



THE CATHOLICS 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



BY 

HENRY MARTYN SCUDDER, D. D. 






M^ -.. - -.^0 



N E W Y O R K : 
MASON, BAKER & PRATT, 

142 AND 144 GRAND STREET. 
1873. 



liC 



• S-.^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

MASON, BAKEE & PRATT, 

In tlie Office of tlie Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 



THE CATHOLICS 



PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



Is it best to retain the Bible in our public 
schools ? This is a momentous question ; evi- 
dently felt to be so, for the mere mention of it 
moves men deeply ; it stirs their very blood. 

How can it be decided ? The answer is plain. 
In this country the people are sovereign. Their 
sentiment soon crystallizes into law. What the 
people resolve upon will be done. This question 
must find its solution at the bar of public opinion. 

In some other countries it may be an open ques- 
tion whether the State shall make provision for 
the education of its boys and girls. With us it 
is not. Education has become a part of the ma- 
chinery of the American Republic. 

The method, also, as well as the purpose, is set- 
tled. A definite scheme has been originated and 

(3) 



4: THE CATHOLICS AND 

put into operation. Tliey who were before us, 
our fathers, sagacious, patriotic, possessed of com- 
prehensive views, animated by a passionate love 
of liberty, opening the doors of this country to 
all people, cordially inviting them to enter and 
incorporate themselves with the American nation, 
and honestly desirous of securing* equality for all, 
did devise and establish a scheme of common 
schools as a means of attaining the end which 
they so ardently contemplated. They did not 
entertain the chimerical idea of instituting a 
scheme which should suit the notions of all men, 
but one whicli should be for the good of all : and 
they were governed by two ideas ; they recognized 
two foundations upon which alone their edifice 
could be reared and upheld, viz., intelligence and 
virtue. They saw that the Republic could not 
stand at all if it did not stand upon these two. 
Bare intellectual knowledge seemed to them in- 
sufficient. V They reasoned thus : We cannot 
have a good government without good citizens ; 
and we cannot have good citizens without good 
schools ; and we cannot have good schools unless 
in them we teach that which pertains to morality, 
as well as that which pertains to knowledge. 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 5 

Leave out tlie morality, and the education be- 
comes one-sided, distorted, monstrous, breeding 
curses instead of blessings. This was the view 
they took. 

l^ext consider their action. In order to incul- 
cate morality, they must needs choose a book. 
They chose the Bible. Why should they choose 
any other book ? When a man is looking for light, 
shall he reject the sunlight ? Shall he shut np 
his house, close his shutters and kindle tallow 
candles, or shall he open his windows and choose 
sunlight ? If he wants light, is not sunlight the 
best light ? This book seemed to them worthy 
on many accounts. Its history, its poetry, its 
models, its manly English, its inimitable narra- 
tive, its healthful stimulus, and, above all, its pure 
morality commended it to them. They looked 
over the world, and saw that wherever the Bible 
was not, there the moralities were confused ; even, 
in some cases, so far confused, that men were to 
be found who thought it quite right to Idll, roast 
and eat each other. They also surveyed those 
countries where the Bible, though existing, is sup- 
pressed and the people are forbidden to read it, 
and there, also, were moral disorders and dark- 



6 THE CATHOLICS AND 

nesses ; and tliey came back witli still firmer con- 
fidence to the Bible, assured that in it tbej pos- 
sessed a standard of morals which was certain, 
fixed and unchangeable. So they introduced it 
into the pnblic schools, in order that the children 
might read it, and thus drink of the stream of 
unadulterated morality which flows from this clear 
fountain. This was the scheme they formed. 

Well, thus far, how has it worked ? Has this 
scheme of education, which includes the Bible, 
been a success ? Has it injured any one? Has 
it inflicted a single social, civil, or religious disa- 
bility on any person ? Has it trampled on any 
man's conscience, oppressed any one, persecuted 
any body ? Is there a place on the globe where 
the Jew is so free and so happy as in the country 
where the Bible is taught in the common school ? 
I once spoke to a Jew about returning to the 
Holy Land, and he answered : " Sir, I do not 
wish to go there : this country is good enough for 
me." Has the Israelite ever been able to say 
that in a land where the Bible is unread ? Is the 
Papist not free here? Does the public school, or 
the Bible in it, teach thiC children that persecu- 
tion is laudable ? A race that does not read the 



THE PUBLIC SCnOOLS. 7 

Bible may easily become nan'ow, bigoted, and 
persecuting ; but a race that reads the Bible from 
its schoolboy days, becomes large-hearted and tol- 
erant, and learns to cherish freedom for others as 
truly as for itself. Has not the public school 
proved a blessing to the poor children in lifting 
them up into companionship with the richer child- 
ren, and has it not been a blessing to the rich 
children in bringing them to realize the brother- 
hood of the common school, to recognize the 
equality of all boys and girls who play and quar- 
rel with each other, who study and grow up toge- 
ther? In Boston, in the same class in one of the 
city's schools, was a woodsawyer's son and a son 
of an ex-President of the United States. A 
much coveted prize lay between these two, and 
the woodsawyer's boy got it. Is such an institu- 
tion — one in which such facts are not only possi- 
ble, but natural — of an illiberal tendency ? Is it not 
a mighty instrument in the unification of our hete- 
rogeneous popul ations ? Is it not j ustly our joy and 
our pride, and rightly the admiration of the world ? 
The public school, then, with the Bible in it, 
has proved successful. jS[o man can truthfully 
sav that it has been a failure. 



b THE CATHOLICS AND 

Now comes a demand that the Bible shall bo 
excluded. We are called upon to reverse a 
national policy which has endured for years, and 
produced the most beneficent results ; and the 
question arises before the American people : Shall 
the Bible be expelled from our common schools ? 

Four points should be considered : 

I. — Feom whom did the demand arise ? 

It is notorious that it arose under the instigation 
of the authorities of the Papal Church. Tliis 
demand is not so much the voice of the Catholic 
laymen as of the Komish. priesthood. The Cath- 
olic laity in this country become gradually eman- 
cipated from many of their prejudices, and, if 
they were let alone, no such demand would be 
made ; but they are moved to it by the piiests, — 
concerning whom we may be permitted to in- 
quire : Are they men wbo love this country and 
its institutions ? Are they in sympathy with its 
hopes and aspirations ? Do they wish it to be- 
come among the nations that which it aims to 
be, the bright example of the largest civil and 
religious liberty ? Nay, the Romish priests arc 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 9 

not of this nation. Their allegiance is not to this 
go\xrnment, but to another that is outside of this. 
Thev hold that the Pope is not only the head of 
the Papal Chui-ch, but the lord of the world, the 
sovereign of kings, the one potentate who is 
above all secular governments. Moi'c than this, 
they hold him to be the lord of the human con- 
science, lately also made infallible. Their loyalty 
is not an American, but a Papal loyalty. Their 
flag is not our flag. Their history is not our his- 
tor}'. Their sympathy is not with the Kepublic, 
nor with its purposes of liberty. It is not strange 
that they should incite the Catholic laymen to 
object to the Bible in the common schools. 

II. — On what grounds has the demand been 

MADE. 

On several : 

First : It is affirmed that the Bible is a sectarian 
book, and, therefore, the State has no right to 
put it in the schools. 

Here a jumbled issue is made. Mud is thrown 
into the stream of argument, and it runs with a 
turbid flow. Stop, and let it clear. The argu- 
ment assumes — and this assumption is the mud 
1* 



10 THE CATHOLICS AND 

cast in — tliat tlie reading of the Bible in the 
schools is equivalent to the teaching of sec- 
tarian dogmas. This is untrue. Creeds, cate- 
chisms, confessions, theologies and denomination- 
al formulas maj be sectarian ; but the simple 
Bible is not sectarian. From the nature of the 
case this appears, for if it were a sectarian book, 
how could all the sects accept it ? If it were sec- 
tarian, there would be only one sect, the sect 
whose doctrines it taught. The fact that there 
are many sects, and that thej all equally accept 
it, proves that the sectarianism is in them and 
not in the Bible. There is no sectarianism in tbe 
Bible. It is in men's heads and hearts. It is 
their addition to the Scripture, and is not in it. 
Hence it cannot be a sectarian book. 

Moreover, this book is read in the schools, with- 
out printed note or verbal comment. 

The Lord's Prayer also is repeated in some of 
the schools. Whose conscience can be damaged 
in the use of that prayer ? Not the Deist's, for 
the name of Christ does not occur in it. Not the 
Jew's, for it is a Jewish prayer, uttered before the 
Christian Church was founded. Not the Papist's, 
for it is the prayer which he ofteuest repeats ; it 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS, 11 

is the " Paternoster " which he so much reveres. 
Kor is this all. If the Catholic children wish 
it, they can read their own version of the Scrip- 
ture, the D(Aiay Bible : and if the Hebrew chil- 
dren wish it, they can read only the Old Testa- 
ment : and if this arrangement is not considered 
complete, there can be a total exemption in 
favor of children whose parents desire that they 
should abstain from reading the Bible. This rule 
has been observed in some of the schools. The 
Catholic and the Hebrew children have been ex- 
cused altogether in the few instaTices where the 
parents have made the request. This course can 
be followed in all the schools. Then of whose con- 
science can it be said that it has been trampled 
upon ? Will it not suflSce that they are excused ? 
Is the conscience of the objector so scrupulous 
that it cannot be satisfied with this ; cannot be 
satisfied as long as the Bible is in the bnilding, 
as long as anybody is allowed to read it ? Where 
does this conscience derive its authority to lord it 
over all the other consciences? Do not the vast 
majority of those who send to these schools de- 
sire that their children should read the Bible ? 
Are they the only persons in America who have 



12 THE CATHOLICS AND 

no riglits ? Is there no trampling upon conscience, 
when the Bible is banished entirely ? The con- 
science which demands not only that itself shall 
not read the Bible, but that none else shall do it, 
is a conscience that takes everything and gives 
nothing. Such supersensitive consciences had bet- 
ter leave the country, or, still better, never enter 
it. This, clearly, is not the place for them. 

The truth is, the Papal Church objects to the 
Bible, not because it is sectarian, but because it 
is unsectarian ; not because it encroaches on any 
one's liberty, but because it promotes the liberty 
of all : because it creates the condition in which 
men learn to think and act for themselves, and 
also to bear with the diverse thoughts and actions 
of others. And this the Papal Church desires 
not, for it wishes to subjugate the minds, hearts, 
wills, consciences, imaginations, bodies and lives 
of all men and women to itself, so that they shall 
think, feel and act as it dictates ; and this never 
can be carried into effect where a Bible-atmo- 
sphere and a Bible-sunlight prevail. 

Having thus exhibited the groundlessness of 
this plea of sectarianism, let us see what the real 
position of the State is. While the American 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 13 

government is not a sectarian, neitlier is it an 
atheistic, nor a pao;an, nor a Moliammeclan gov- 
ernment. This is a Christian country, and the 
people who live in it are a Christian people, and 
the State which they have erected is a Christian 
State, and the history of this nation thus far is the 
history of an avowedly Christian nation. This 
government was founded as a Christian govern- 
ment by our forefathers, wh.o did it wath tears 
and prayers, witli fastings and struggles, amidst 
conflicts many and sore that tried tlieir souls ; and 
we, their descendants, are a people who acknowl- 
edge the Bible and adhere to it. While in the 
matter of religion our government interferes with 
none, intimidates none, imposes disabilities on 
none, forces none, proscribes none, and ostracises 
none ; while it leaves every man free to w^orship 
as he hkes, or not to w^orship ; it is nevertheless it- 
self a Christian government, and why should it 
cast the Bible from its schools ? In what depart- 
ment of the government is the Bible not found 1 
Tell me, when the President of these United 
States enters uj)on his high office, does he not 
take his oath on the Bible that he will be faithful 
to his duty ? Do not the officereof his cabinet take 



14 THE CATnOLICS AND 

a similar oath ? If you pass from om' Executive 
to our Legislative branch, do you not find that 
the daily conventions of the State Legislatures, 
and the daily sessions of the National Congress, 
are opened with prayer by chaplains appointed 
for that purpose; and do not all our legislators 
swear by the Bible that they will be good and 
true men in the making of laws ? Enter our Ju- 
diciary. Are not our judges initiated into their 
office in the same way ; and tell me, in our courts 
on what book does the witness lay his hand and 
promise to tell the truth ; and what book does the 
juror kiss when he declares that he will render a 
righteous verdict ; and tell me also whether perjury 
— the false kissing of that book — is not reckoned 
in our courts as one of the major crimes. Go into 
our army and our navy. Who appoints the chap- 
lains, to read, to preach, to pray, and to comfort ? 
Who, but the government ? In our late war, in 
camp and on board ship, what book was brought to 
the bedside of the dying soldier and sailor ? Was 
it not this Bible ? How is it with our holidays and 
sacred days? How came Christmas, the day of 
Christ's birth, to be a holiday by law ? Does the 
President of the United States appoint an annual 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 15 

national thanksgiving ? Do the governors of the 
' States echo it ? What about the days of fasting 
in times of the nation's trouble? Are they not 
appointed by the State ? Are there not, on our 
Statute books, laws to protect the Sabbath, and 
laws against blasj)hemy ? Go down lower; walk 
into the penal institutions, the penitentiaries, the 
jails, and the houses of refuge, and pass up thence 
to the sanitary institutions, the government hos- 
pitals ; is not the Bible there by the act of the 
State ? Look, too, on the formal documents issued 
under Federal or State authority. Do you not see 
on them the words Anno Domini, the year of our 
Lord ? Whose Lord ? Our Lord, the Lord of us 
individually and the Lord of us all in the aggre- 
gate, the Lord of the American State, the Lord 
of the Bible. I repeat the question, in "what de- 
partment of the American government is the 
Bible, and the Christian rehgion that flows from it, 
unacknowledged ? Verily, though our govern- 
ment is not a sectarian, yet it is a Christian gov- 
ernment. If the" Bible may be in the Wiiite 
House, in the Legislatures, in the courts, in the 
army, in the navy, in the penal, the reformatory, 
and the sanitary institutions, why may it not re- 



16 THE CATHOLICS AND 

main in our common schools ? Is its exclusion 
tlienoe to be the beginning of a movement which 
is to result in a complete expatriation ? Again, 
if tlie Bible — -which, bj reason of the liberty and 
the toleration which it inspired, Vv^as the real au- 
thor of our noble scheme of government — is to be 
cast out to please the caprice of men who have 
no sympathy either with that Bible or the State 
that grew out of it, then why not go farther ? 
Let those who believe in the divine right of kings 
come here and say, " The American constitution 
does not hold to kings, it is an offence to my con- 
science ; down with the Constitution :" and let the 
criminals of all -lands flock hither, and exclaim, 
" The American laws do not suit me, they do not 
allow me the freedom that I desire ; I wish to do 
as I like*: down with the law." Be sure of this, 
if you begin by driving the Bible out of the 
American commonwealth, you will end by attend- 
ing the funeral of republicanism. 

Secondly : The exclusion of the Bible is de- 
manded on the ground of unjust taxation. Those 
who make this plea say : " The reading of the 
Bible in the public schools injures our con- 
science, and it is not just to make us pay taxes 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 17 

for the support of these conscience-offending 
schools." 

One cannot help, at the outset, asking, How 
many of these objectors do pay taxes ? The ob- 
jection springs mostly from a class of people who 
do not pa)'' taxeS;, who are not property owners. 
These are they who make the loudest outcry. If 
they will only suffer the schools to go on, if they 
will cease meddling with them, these schools will 
do one good thing: they will so educate the chil- 
di-en of these non-tax-paying objectors, that in 
the coming generation a great many of them will 
attain unto the dignity of tax-payers. The chil- 
dren will learn to read, write and keep accounts ; 
they will catch the spirit of American enterprise, 
gain property, and begin to do what their fathers 
didn't — pay taxes. 

But leaving this, the objection itself is based 
on an assumption which falls to pieces as soon as 
it is examined. It is assumed that the only equiva- 
lent given by the public school to the tax-payer 
is a certain amount of Bible reading ; whereas, 
as I have shown, this element need not enter into 
the matter. If a parent requests that his child 
should be excused from reading the Bible, he 



18 THE CATHOLICS AND 

can be excused ; and then the Bible reading has 
nothing to do with the tax. The parent receives 
a fall equivalent for the tax in the common scbool 
education wliicb is bestowed on his child. He 
sends the child for this purpose, namely, to re- 
ceive a common scliool education, and the child 
gets that, and the parent is taxed for it, and the Bi- 
ble question is eliminated from the controversy. He 
pays a small tax and receives an inestimable bene- 
fit. What is there unfair in this transaction ? ]^o in- 
road is made either upon his purseor his conscience. 
Thirdly : A demand for the suppression of the 
Bible is made upon the ground of universal satis- 
faction. They who put this forward say : " Let 
us have no controversy with the Papists about 
the schools" — the controversy is with them; Jews 
and infidels do not enter largely into it — " Let us 
have no dispute with the Roman Catholics. The 
question of Bible or no Bible is not so important 
as the question of school or no school. The pub- 
lic school itself is in peril of life. The retention 
of the Bible is the creation of a line of breakers 
all along the shore of our commonwealth : upon 
it this goodly ship, the public school, is in danger 
of being wrecked. Suppress the Bible and the 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 19 

breakers will disappear, tlie storm will be linsbed, 
there will be a calm. The bone of contention will 
be ground to powder, and everybody will be sat- 
isfied.''' 

This is a great mistake, and the fulfillment of it 
would be a prodigious blunder. The Papists have 
filled the air with clamors against the Bible in 
the schools. They boast of what they have already 
accomplished. The Irish Catholics held a con- 
vention in St. Louis, on October 17, 1873. I 
quote fiom their proceedings as reported in the 
New York Times of October 18, 1873 : 

" Mr. Harley said that the Catholics had gained 
a great victory in driving the Bible out of the 
public schools." 

This is a little premature. They have not yet 
quite done this. They ciy out, however, against 
the Bible, and this outcry has an ulterior end. 
They do not intend to stop at the exclusion of the 
Bible. Their hostility runs deeper than that. 
They are enemies to our public school system as 
a system, whether it has the Bible in it or not. 
Nothing short of the demolition of the public 
school will satisfy them. This they now openly 
avow. I quote again from the report of the pro- 



20 THE CATHOLICS AKD 

ceedings of the Convention of Irish Catholics in 
St. Louis. 

Father Phelan, of St. Louis, said : " The public 
men of America were educated in the public 
schools, and were exhibitions of the system, and 
they were the most corrupt and dishonest of any 
country in the world. Men can steal in this coun- 
try with impunit}^, provided the amount is large 
enough. That the children of the country go heels 
over head to the devil must be attributed to the 
education they receive in the public schools, which 
does not fit them for the temptations of the world. 
In these schools men of science are honored and 
eulogized, but the name of Jesus Christ is not al- 
lowed to be mentioned with reverence. These 
children turn out to be learned horse-thieves, 
scholastic counterfeiters, and well posted in all 
schemes of deviltry." 

Further on in the discussion, Father Phelan 
again spoke, and said : " He thought the dele- 
gates from the East had not studied this subject 
enough. He frankly confessed that the Catholics 
stood before the country as the enemies of the 
public schools, and the reasons therefor should, 
be stated. lie considered those reasons were em- 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 21 

bodied in the resolution. They must say tliej 
would as soon send tlieir children into a pest- 
house, or bury them, as let them go to the public 
schools. They, were assured they would lose the 
faith. They were afi-aid the child, who left home 
in the morninoj would come back with somethino; 
in its heart as black as hell." 
■ After Father Phelan had thus spoken, Father 
Mangin arose, and said : " The public school sys- 
tem is a nuisance." 

First their cry is, " Out with the Bible ! out 
■with the Bible ! it hurts our conscience !" but 
as soon as they perceive that the American pub- 
lic are weakening on that point, and that there is 
some probability that the Bible may be excluded, 
then they cry out, " Godless schools, godless 
schools, they defile our conscience, we cannot 
send to them !" 

The removal of the Bible, then, will not be the 
removal of the difficulty. Yield the Bible and 
you have simply surrendered the outworks, and 
they, rejoicing, will immediately proceed to assault 
the citadel. If we expel the Bible, we shall only 
effect two things : we shall make an exhibition of 
our own silliness, shortsightedness and cowardice. 



22 THE CATHOLICS AND 

and we shall allow tliem to run tlieir gunpowder 
mines under our fortress and blow it into the air. 
i Fourthly : The banishment of the Bible is urged 
on the ground of reciprocation. It is said : " If 
when we have the majority we keep the Bible in, 
when they have the majority, if that should ever 
be, they will put in the Eoman Catholic Cate- 
chism, the Virgin Mary, the saints and the holy 
water ; but if we now are kind enough, in view 
of their prejudices, to keep the Bible out, they, 
if they should ever attain the power, will be noble 
enough to remember our courtesy and recipro- 
cate it, and will keep out the Catechism and the 
Mass. Are we silly flies to be caught in such a 
spider's web ? Are we ignorant of history ? The 
Roman Catholics will establish their religion in 
the public schools the instant they get the power 
to do so, and wiU not give one moment's thought as 
to whether we kept the Bible in or out. And since 
this is so, we had better keep the Bible in as long 
as we can. The plea is— for I cannot dignify it 
with the title of argument — if we do not cast out 
the Bible now, they will cast it out when they 
have the chance. The answer is, if they ever 
have the chance, they will cast it out anyhow, 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 23 

and for that reason we should hold on to it as 
long as possible. "Wlien they do cast it out, it 
will be cast out, but we will wait until they do ; 
and this especially since the retention of the Bible 
will itself be a means of defeating them in their 
design of abolishing our pubhc schools. 

Having thus seen who the demanders are, and 
on what grounds they make their demand, we 
are prepared to consider 

III. — Theik object. 

I have already proved by the testimony of 
Romish priests, that our common school system 
finds a relentless foe in the Papal Church. The 
public school creates an atmosphere of freedom. 
It radiates the light and warmth of libert}'-. It is 
a republican institution. It is hostile to the 
narrowness, the exclusiveness, the bigotry, and 
the superstition of the Romish Church. It con- 
fronts the inherent disloyalty of that church to 
all civil governments. Therefore it is hated and 
conspired against. The design of the Romish 
hierarchy is this : to abolish our public schools 
and establish sectarian schools ; to demand a part 



24 THE CATHOLICS AND 

of the public scTiool fund that it may be used to 
support schools which shall be exclusively Eoman 
Catholic ; and their greater design is, by this, in 
connection with all other possible instrumentali- 
ties, to subordinate the American State to the 
Papacy. This can never be accomplished, unless 
first the free schools of the Republic are demol- 
ished. Yes, free schools : Fkee : a significant 
title ; a bulwark against the incursion of a thou- 
sand superstitions ; a protest against the bringing 
back of medieval darkness ; a protest against the 
confessional in the family, the inquisition in the 
State, and the enthronement of priestcraft over 
all in the person of the Pope. FREE schools ! 
JSTo wonder that the little monosyllable sends a 
tremor of disgust and dread to the heart of every 
Catholic priest. Yes, free schools; free up to 
this hour. Even so, let them be free forever, 
with a free open Bible in them that no rude 
fingers shall close and no ruthless hands shall 
cast out. 

EoiJETHLT AND LASTLY : I tUT THE QUESTION, SHALL 
WE EXPEL THE BIBLE % 

Our fathers planned this public school system, 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 25 

and placed the Bible m the centre of it : shall we 
revoke their deed ? 

Moroovei", it is to be considered that the Bible 
is really the parent of the common school. They 
who read that book, and love it, and whose char- 
acters are formed by it, are the sort of persons 
that originate such a benign institntion as the 
public school. No such institution ever grew up 
in pagan lands, or in countries where the Bible 
is a sealed book. Our public school is begotten 
and bred of the Bible, and shall the child now 
turn upon the parent and choke it to death? That 
would be like the act of the Hindu parricide, who 
takes his venerable pai'ent down to the banks of 
the Ganges, and pours its mud down his throat 
till he suffocates and dies. 

Besides, the Bible is the parent of liberty. The 
ancient republics of Sparta and Athens, in their 
palmiest days, were not genuine republics. Always 
in them the citizens were the few, and the slaves 
were the many. 'No more atrocious barbarities 
were ever inflicted by man upon his fellow -man 
than those which the so-called freemen of Sparta 
inflicted upon their wretched helots. A free Bible 
is the real author of free institutions. In the dark 
2 



26 THE CATHOLICS AND 

age?, when the Bible was a sealed book, priests 
and popes, emperors and oppressors had all things 
their own waj ; but when the Reformers unlocked 
the Bible, when they gave it to the common peo- 
ple in their own vernaculars, when they taught 
the right, the privilege, and the duty of private 
iudgment, then men began to think for them- 
selves ; then civil and religious liberty found 
birth : and for a free State to suppress the Bible 
is to enter upon a suicidal policy. Shall a free 
people set themselves against the book that made 
them free ? Shall they proscribe the Bible and 
disband the public schools, and, levying taxes, 
raise money in order to distribute it to sects? 
Shall the State set up sectarian schools, schools 
in which the children will be taught that their 
primal allegiance is to a foreign power, schools 
suited to breed disaffection to a republican form 
of government ? Surely it is not the business of 
any government to cut its own throat. 

Since our republican institutions are founded 
on the Bible, every child trained in our Republic 
ought to have the opportunity to know that the 
Bible exists, and that it is the basis of our rights 
and our liberties. A conscience kept in the dark 



THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 27 

is Hot a free conscience. Cliildren have con- 
sciences as well as grown-np people, and it is the 
right of every child in America that it should 
know of the existence and the character of the 
Bible ; and the American State sliould never al- 
low itself to be coerced into a position where it 
cannot point to its public schools, and say to all 
the children of the Republic : " Here is the Bible, 
the source of our freedom and happiness." As 
much as this is due to tlie consciences of the chil- 
dren. A brand put upon that book, by the ex- 
pulsion of it from the public schools, would be an 
act of unfaithfulness to all the children ; it would 
be a deed of folly and of infamy. 

The question whether the Bible shall be cast 
out of our public schools is one that must pro- 
foundly engage us all, for it is of vital interest to 
our commonwealth. It is a question that affects 
our domestic, social, political and religious career. 
The demand made is only initiative. Yield this, 
and demand will follow upon demand. We must 
take our stand somewhere. Let us take it here. 
Let us not give the first inch. Let us say calmly 
and resolutely : " Here are our schools. We teach 
no sectarianism. We endeavor to train the chil- 



28 CATHOLICS AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

dreu in intelligence, in good morals, in the prin- 
ciples of civil and religious liberty. If yon do not 
like this, you need not come to this country, or if 
you have already come, you can go back ; you 
were free to come, you are equally free to return, 
and you shall have our best wishes and prayers 
for your welfare." When the hosts of Xerxes fell 
upon Greece, Leonid as and his brave soldiers 
withstood them at the gateway of the land, at 
Thennopyte, and Greece was saved. Here is 
our Thermopylse in this conflict : it is at the door 
of the free, common school. Thermopylse ! Re- 
member what it means : Qepiial TivXaL — Warm 
Gates, Hot Entrance. 

Let us make it very hot for any who attempt to 
pass it. 



